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WNYC Radio - "Hospitals, Researchers to be Hard Hit by Sequester"

– March 1, 2013 ––

If automatic spending cuts kick in, healthcare, in particular hospitals, will get a larger slice of those cuts than any sector other than the military. But it's the academic medical centers where research is conducted that would see the largest exodus of funding. The Mount Sinai Medical Center receives around $225 million from the NIH and other sources. Officials are bracing for cuts of around 5-to-8 percent, which would translate into a $12-to-18 million funding drop for medical research. "We don't know yet exactly how it will be administered, whether they'll decrease the number of new grants they give out or substantially alter the grant awards they've already made," said Dr. Kenneth Davis, the president and CEO of Mount Sinai. "The scientists running those grants will have to let people go. There's just no way they're going to be able to meet their budgets without cutting staff," he said. "There'll be reductions in the volume of science that is done and the number of people that are employed, the papers that are published and the results that will be obtained." Learn more